Rules Versus Aesthetics

In American English, collective nouns are nearly always treated as singular. They emphasize the group as a unit. Occasionally, when there is some reason to draw attention to the individual members of the group, a collective noun may be treated as plural.
Singular: The class respects the teacher.
Plural: The class are debating among themselves.Rules for Writers, Fourth Edition, Diana Hacker, Bedford-St. Martins, 2000

Ah, but sound must play a role; mustn't it? The problem began buzzing in my head while reading a novel, The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers, translated from the German by John Brownjohn. The sentence reads: And rocks were all there was; nothing – not a single living creature; not even a plant – obtruded its presence on the pure geology.

My sense of right and wrong, correct and incorrect usage, began shrilling its alarm. Shouldn't that read “rocks were all there were...”? Say it out loud. Rocks was. Rocks were. It must be the latter. It simply must. Yet, the rules say nay. Surely, this must constitute an instance where the rules are no more than guidelines, where the writer's instinct for the written word takes precedence.

Are you sure the book has been translated into US English? Because the rules for collective nouns are different in the UK* (and I think the translator is a Brit).

*though still fairly confusing to me!

From wiki:

In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies. For example, "the team is in the dressing room" (formal agreement) refers to the team as an ensemble, whilst "the team are fighting among themselves" (notional agreement) refers to the team as individuals.

Further pondering leads me to conclude the sentence Rocks were all there was." is correct and I have no problem with it. It has the plural noun 'rocks' identified with 'were' and the collective noun 'all' with 'was'; ergo, plural with plural and singular with singular.

The issue I had remains. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the EUFA championships this year; that is one marvelous sport. However, the announcers were somewhat less enjoyable. They had this irritating habit of making statements such as "England were more than equal to the task." Now, that unquestionably follows the rules but it sounds...well, it sounds wrong! I suppose that is what prompted my post, my dissatisfaction with the rules. Just as my quote from Diana Hacker's tome in the first post demonstrates the same wrongness: "the class are debating of among themselves." That sounds as if her patronym is an accurate assessment of her rules.

Why the of in, "the class are debating of among themselves." To me it reads better without. i.e the class are debating among themselves. Same goes for were and was. I tend to go with how it sounds when read and does it feel right to me. (Hol, hopeless at rules of any kind)

The issue I had remains. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the EUFA championships this year; that is one marvelous sport. However, the announcers were somewhat less enjoyable. They had this irritating habit of making statements such as "England were more than equal to the task." Now, that unquestionably follows the rules but it sounds...well, it sounds wrong! I suppose that is what prompted my post, my dissatisfaction with the rules. Just as my quote from Diana Hacker's tome in the first post demonstrates the same wrongness: "the class are debating of among themselves." That sounds as if her patronym is an accurate assessment of her rules.

I'm confused. Ms. Hacker says that in America collective nouns are nearly always treated singular, but there are exceptions. I don't expect EUFA commentators to use American English; collective + plural is more common in British English. If it sounds wrong to you, it might be your American ear. So what you seem to be taking exception to seems to be not so much the rule as the exceptions to the rule.

"The class are debating among themselves," is an interesting example, though. If it sounds wrong, what would you say is the "right" version?

Here's what I can come up with, without re-writing the sentence:

1. The class are debating among themselves.
2. The class is debating among itself.
3. The class is debating among themselves.
ETA:
4. The class is debating among themself.

(1) is by fare my favourite version. (But then I lean towards British English, anyway [although I'm not a native speaker and American English is still a big enough influence on my casual style to be noticable].)

HE -- you keep taking formats for grammar -- which as you yourself note, vary somewhat over time and from country to country because they are actually formats even though they like to call them rules -- for expository, non-fiction writing, and insisting that they must also be rules of creative writing -- fiction and poetry, and then chafe against those non-existent fiction rules. As we have gone over and over, there are no rules in fiction writing, including standardized (but still changeable) formats of grammar and spelling.

Fiction writing is indeed greatly effected and run by sound -- the sound of whole paragraphs, of sentences structured one way or another, the sound of words, the sounds of syllables. That's why fiction will have sentence fragments. It will have dangling participles, run on sentences, graphs inserted into bodies of text if you're doing something funky, switching tenses, etc. and on and on. Standardized formats of grammar are useful to know as a tool for figuring out how you're going to use language in fiction. But you're not trying to communicate through a business memo and no one ties fiction to a grammar test. Individual editors may have pet grammar peeves or concerns about clarity that may come up for discussion in developing a work, and copyeditors will use a standardized grammar to look for errors, but if the author says leave it in, it stays in. And copy-editors do not correct sentence fragments and the like in fiction -- not if they are good copy-editors. Publishers have no interest in policing author grammar (even in non-fiction really.)

Fiction scholars mostly study grammar to see the cultural changes and shifts that occur in language and make those interesting sounds and images; not to try and scour a fiction author as awful for not following whatever modern standardized format may be used in schools to teach children or newspapers to keep their articles all on the same format and the like. Standardized formats, especially spelling, are necessary in business and non-fiction communication for efficiency, although they are extremely flexible, especially for English. It's a critical component of childhood education in order for children to understand how language is used. And whole new grammars emerge for English -- texting grammars, twitter grammars (hashtags!) There's a reason that the Oxford English Dictionary has to keep adding new words.

In fiction, no one cares unless they have their own personal pet peeves about how language is used. Railing about a standardized grammar that you're not actually being judged against in your fiction seems to me to be only an issue if you run into someone who is obsessed with grammar and has not studied a great deal of poetry.

That aside, I personally think "England were more than able to the task" sounds excellent as a sound. But I might do that sentence any number of ways depending on the character/narrative voice:

England had it to the task alright.
Those England, those happy few, who conquered all in its light.
Those English players really brought its game.
Union Jack and Bob's your uncle!
Gooooaaaaal!

I always admire the empathy with which you rebut my arguments. I rail against the rules because I am certain that I do not follow them more due to ignorance than creative license. And, when I am reading an otherwise brilliant tome, a single occurrence of a sub-standard - to my mind - phrasing tends to keep me up at night pondering why one would commit such an error of judgment. The next morning I go look up the 'format' to discover what it is that I am missing. Yes, I get back to the book but what recompense for all those hours wasted pondering?

PS: For example: freely admitting your right to be creative, are you certain you wish to continue to use 'effected' where one - I - would expect 'affected'? Think of how much sleep I am going to lose tonight!

Oopsie-daisy. Affected. It's greatly affected by sound, etc. I also occasionally spell authors' names wrong. And I frequently forget how to spell the word vicious. And I start sentences with conjunctions. And I don't always match singular and plural pronouns in a sentence, such as "if someone wants to freak out about grammar, they seem to be expending a lot of energy for little return." But you still knew what I meant, didn't you?

Narrative choices for fiction have a lot to do with sound, style and structural effects. If they are using a non-King's English phrase, there are usually a number of reasons for it. It might be better to just note that you would put it differently and move on. Or at least, give examples. *smiley face*

I don't expect EUFA commentators to use American English; collective + plural is more common in British English. If it sounds wrong to you, it might be your American ear.

No contest, DS, and your point is well taken. My reaction came after reading 80 or 90 pages of nominally U.S.A. usage, e.g., color used vice colour, et al. Then, I stumbled on what I initially believed to be an honest mistake. Then, as often happens, I discovered the mistake was mine.

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

1. The class are debating among themselves.
2. The class is debating among itself.
3. The class is debating among themselves.
ETA:
4. The class is debating among themself.
(1) is by fare my favourite version. (But then I lean towards British English, anyway [although I'm not a native speaker and American English is still a big enough influence on my casual style to be noticable].)

(2) is by far my favorite version. But, then, I lean towards U.S.A. English, anyway [although I am not a Native American speaker and Holbrook's English is a big enough influence on my casual style to be problematical].

(2) although I am not a Native American speaker and Holbrook's English is a big enough influence on my casual style to be problematical.

Sorry, couldn't resist!

Wow! I influence a man's style. I am also a problem. Hmmm... I find and Dawnstorm can confirm this, my writing goes "flat," as in the story loses its heart when I start worrying about rules. I try and fiddle with it afterwards to make it obey the rules, but it doesn't always work.

...my writing goes "flat," as in the story loses its heart, when I start worrying about rules.

The first draft is where I try to capture the heart of what I'm trying to say. That's more important than the smaller details like spelling, grammar, eye color, names of secondary characters, etc. And (thank God for computers) on the second draft I can easily fix the small details I screwed up.

Some writers force themselves to avoid attempting perfection in the first draft by writing it in longhand. Then they re-write using the computer. Not my preferred method, but it works for them.

And as for rules: most rules have variations and exceptions. It's a mark of the expert writer that they understand the rules and when to make an exception and bend or break them.